© Peter Watson 2017 show the piercing or stabbing of animal bodies in a number of cases, typically the fleshy parts of cattle, equids and bears. There is a new centrality of the human in the symbolism of the Holocene societies in the Middle East.  Moreover, the spiritual realm is no longer gained through caves but through structures built above ground. The houses at Çatalhöyük are continued over many generations. Wild animals are brought into the houses in the walls. There is an increased focus on the creation of histories. A suite of themes circulated at Çatalhöyük: skulls, birds of prey, wild cattle and other dangerous animals, and maleness, linked by continuity. Together with the piercing and refleshing of bodies. Allied to this, and importantly, there is little evidence of a nurturing mother goddess, a theme that was hitherto considered paramount among palaeontologists and archaeologists. And there is a decline in animal parts in upper levels. The annual (and even more often) replastering of walls points to the routinization of lives. Houses lasted on average for 80 years, with feasts every 7-80 years, and foundation rituals every 70-100 years. The dead were preferentially buried in certain houses, and not all people were buried on site. In fact, one third of the population was buried off-site. There seems to be a sense of hiding and revealing. Paintings are repeatedly covered over, as many as forty times in one case, while seven times was common. Twenty-to-thirty bodies were found in some houses, which archaeologists now call ‘history houses’, since they seem to be ‘ancestral buildings.’ There was a cult of the dead, which involved small corporate groups, ‘linked by descent’ to these houses. Skulls were removed from important individuals. The average number of burials per house was eight, the average duration of houses was 70- 100 years, so burials occurred every seven years or so. Hunting images decline in the upper levels at Çatalhöyük. Instead there were more small symbolic bulls’ heads as handles on jugs etc. The walls of houses at Çatalhöyük were replastered